First up, Tim Walberg chimes in to the LSJ in a bizarre letter that was neither coherent nor relevant to any particular issue, just a general "Tax! Bad! Ugh!" cry to fans of the pink pig.
Thanks to our tax-hiking state government, we now have the highest national unemployment rate and the worst state economy in the nation.
And we managed to accomplish that in one whole month after a tax increase! You would think that six straight years of tax cuts might have had a little something to do with the situation we found ourselves in- but no, in Walberg's world, it happened just that quick! And it's all Granholm's fault!
Tim goes on to swoon over John Engler, never mentioning the fact that Big John spent all the savings in the cookie jar and set it up so we had no more cookies coming in to keep the state running after he blew town. And funny how Tim completely ignores the record deficits from Bush and the borrow and borrow some more Republicans in Washington, no, any national economic slowdown will be the fault of the Democrats because they are following Granholm's month old example of paying the bills. Guess they needed her permission or something.
He's got something called the "Tax Increase Prevention Act", probably drawn straight from Grover's fevered imagination, and look for that to go nowhere fast. Dine-and-dash Republicans have run up the tab, and now Tim wants to pass a law to prevent us from paying for it. Sure wish we could do that with our credit cards.
We hear from Candice Miller, and the return of the turtles, over the jump...
Next up we have Candice Miller, complaining about a line-item veto that cut $250 grand from the DEQ's budget for a water monitoring program in the St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair, Clinton River and Detroit River watershed. She called for our Legislature to return the money.
"I urge the Michigan Legislature to take whatever action necessary to restore this critical funding that was stripped by the governor's actions."
OK Candice, we'll raise taxes to pay for it. But you better clear that with Tim Walberg first.
Why the veto? Turns out they didn't spend the money they got last time.
In an e-mail, Liz Boyd, Granholm's press secretary, said no one is more concerned about protecting the Great Lakes than Gov. Granholm.
"That is one reason why this project has been funded every year since 2004," Boyd said. "But given the local agencies have failed to spend the money that was appropriated last year, this funding was not needed."
No matter. Miller wants us to spend more, now, anyway. Think this survived on Bishop's original list of cuts? I don't feel like looking it up.
And last, but certainly not least, you remember that Pete "Turtle Power" Hoesktra kicked this all off by sticking his nose in where it didn't belong, complaining that we were actually using federal funds in the way they were intended, shocker that it is, and he didn't like that one bit, no sir. The Governor rightly smacked him down, and now his constituents have joined in the fray.
U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra was on Grand Rapids' TV-8's "To the Point" last Sunday morning with a big spin that the turtle fence created no jobs. The anti-environmental West Michigan Republicans are planting every "red herring" they can preparing for the 2008 election.
The fact is, the turtle fence absolutely provided jobs for the installers and sales for the material suppliers. What Hoekstra is really upset over is that Haliburton didn't get the $318,000 to hire his Blackwater boys to stand turtle guard over the freeway.
Hoekstra finally backed down and admitted that more flexibility needs to be provided at the federal level. He introduced that legislation after he spent a month wasting our time.
"If Michigan needs greater flexibility from Washington to better prioritize its most pressing needs then I will work to provide it," said Hoekstra, R-Holland.
Maybe you should have done that in the first place, Pete.
I guess we should be grateful that our representatives are actually paying attention to our state since they have spent so much time in office ignoring us, but I'm not sure this is exactly what we had in mind.